CMU football player faces criminal charge

A Central Michigan University football player was charged Monday in Isabella County Trial Court with stealing a credit card and using it to purchase gasoline, apparently while wearing football clothing.

Darrien Boone of Chicago, a quarterback who was redshirted this season, was arraigned by Magistrate Sandra Straus on one count of stealing/retaining without consent a financial transaction device, a four-year felony.

Boone, 19, is accused of stealing a credit/debit card and being involved in two transactions on the card, according to court records.

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Central Michigan University Police began an investigation after getting a report from a woman Nov. 4.

She told police she thought she lost the card Nov. 1 after 2:30 p.m., when she used it at CMU Media Graphics in the Bovee University Center, according to court records.

According to a report from the woman’s bank, the credit card was used Nov. 1 at 7:54 p.m. at a Shell gasoline station in Mt. Pleasant, where was a $71.15 charge, and again at the Rally’s in Mt. Pleasant, where the charges totalled $17.99, according to court records.

Police obtained video surveillance from the Shell station, where the manager said the time was shown in Central Standard Time because the tapes showed a one-hour difference, according to court records.

A review of the surveillance video showed a vehicle at a gasoline pump and the front passenger using a credit card to pay, according to court records.

A CMU Police sergeant went to CMU athletics apparel with a still shot from the video of the passenger, who was wearing CMU football attire, according to court records.

A review of the football roster “showed similar characteristics to Darrien Boone,” according to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint.

A CMU officer found the vehicle used at the Shell station in lot 44 Nov. 10, and located the owner, a resident of Beddow Hall, according to court records.

The officer got in touch with both the owner of the vehicle and Boone, who allegedly admitted they found the credit card in the parking lot at Lexington Ridge apartments, court records indicate.

Boone alledgedly admitted to using the card at the Shell station and the other man told police he used the card at Rally’s because he was “down on his luck,” according to court records.

Boone was a three-year starter quarterback at Fenger Academy and transferred to Hales Franciscan High School in his senior year, where he maintained a 4.0 grade point average but did not play football.

He was named Chicago Sun-Times player of the week twice as a freshman in high school after throwing four and five touchdowns in back-to-back weeks.

He also ran track and lettered in basketball as a freshman in high school.